I think this phrase never rings truer than when you are travelling. Really, think about all the times you have to ask some random person if they know when the next bus is coming, where is that cafe you read about in Lonely Planet that's supposed to be on this street, and do you know where I can get vegetarian food in this city? And if you didn't take English 30 in Alberta, then I'll let you know that the title is also fitting given that it comes from the play "A Street Car Named Desire," set in New Orleans. (See this for the line in the movie by Blanche, and if you hold out to the end you'll hear a good "Stella!" too.) Another title I thought of for this post was "Janna takes on NOLA!" Janna is a hybrid of Janice and Anna. NOLA is a hybrid of New Orleans, LouisiAna. Anna is my amazing friend I met last year in university, and we are often found together at school so some people in our program refer to us as Janna just to simplify things. We went to NOLA for the TESOL International conference March 16 -20. TESOL is a hybrid of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. The conference sessions we chose were informative and we got free dictionaries at the trade show. Okay. Now why we really went...
WE LOVE NEW ORLEANS. Love it. The weather was perfect. The people are friendly and service is great. The food is fantastic. The architecture and design are beautiful. Everyday we took the same walk from our B&B in Marigny to the French Quarter, and we noticed something different every time.
Our B&B was outside of the super touristy French Quarter, but I think it still had all the charm and some really great places to eat. Oh, eating! Heaven! The food is heaven! Consult me before you go to NOLA, because I know where you should go to stay and eat. Back to the B&B, called Lions Inn. The breakfast wasn't anything special, but the beds were super comfy and it had a nice big backyard with a pool, lounge chairs, and lots of greenery. Ed, the host, was so soft spoken but so helpful (hence the title of this blog). He was always available to answer our questions and gave us some really great tips about where to eat and bike. That's the other thing, this place had touring bikes we could borrow, and on our last day we just hopped on and toured around our neighborhood in the sun.
We really felt that while New Orleans seemed very friendly and happy and welcoming, it also seemed to have an edge to it as well. It's hard to describe, but it shows itself once in awhile, like in some of the graffiti art or how the iron work on homes is beautiful in the day but downright creepy at night in the light of gas lamps. Maybe it has something to do with the Mardi Gras culture or the fact that Voodoo was (is) big here. Either way, we always felt safe, but sometimes a little creeped out.
NOLA is also famous for its above-ground cemeteries. The land is too boggy, so they keep their dead above ground.
One of my favorite things about travelling with Anna was her ability to slow down and appreciate really subtle things like the smell of blossoms on jasmine trees only open in the evenings. This is us at the St. Patrick's Day parade, sorry for the lame photo quality.
Food time! It looks gross but I swear it tasted delicious; a grilled shrimp po'boy from a hole-in-the-wall joint.
Good southern food: sweet potato fries and the best crab cakes you ever ate.
These are yummy little deep-fried beignets covered in icing sugar from Cafe Du Monde. Famous AND tasty...
No wonder this place flooded, it's surrounded by water. Here's a few teens on what we think was their grad trip, taking in the ol' Mississippi.
This is just quirky, and it's just for Bethany. Someone decorated their entire truck in a "redheads" theme.
We came across this haunting 'x' more than once. After Katrina hit, rescue crews travelled from house to house and left their mark by spray painting a big x at about the water level of the building. In the top section they left the date, on the left was the initials of the state the crew was from, the bottom was the number of animals found dead and the right side was for humans. Fortunately, this house was empty when it was found.
This was tiled into a sidewalk:
